![\"Chicago\"](\"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Chicago.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cMy first language is dance. I was trained in classical ballet. I discovered television was not my true calling and my goal was to perform.\u201d He continued to work at GMA during the day and would later audition for Broadway shows with aspirations of becoming a dancer. He landed numerous roles in iconic shows such as \u201cA Chorus Line,\u201d \u201cJoseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat\u201d with Donny Osmond, \u201cChicago the Musical,\u201d and \u201cVictor\/ Victoria.\u201d Evans was able to leave GMA and focus on dance.<\/p>\n
Evans is not the type of person who can sit still. His schedule of auditions, rehearsals, and performances was hectic, but Evans found time to work and dabble with graphic design software. \u201cI have always been fascinated with motion graphics. Saul Bass inspired me with his evolutionary crafting of title sequences of movies.\u201d Bass was a graphic designer and filmmaker who worked with some of Hollywood\u2019s greatest filmmakers including Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese. Evans was interested in design and graphics, which could deliver an experience \u2013 movement that told a story.<\/p>\n
His passion and interest in design led him to Parsons School of Design where he studied color theory, motion graphics, and advertising. He explored foundational design process methodologies and various theoretical frameworks in graphic design\u2014and he continued to dance. As Evans continued to dance in music videos, with entertainers such as Paula Abdul and Bell Biv DeVoe, he was also networking with key choreographers. Additionally, he was working with Martin Lawrence on \u201cBlack Knight.\u201d He was living in Los Angeles at the time \u2013 but not loving it.<\/p>\n Later, more opportunities arrived and Evans found himself working alongside Kenny Ortega with the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Ortega is a film and television producer, director, and choreographer who has worked with Michael Jackson, Billy Squire, and Madonna. \u201cWorking on the Olympic project was the ignition of what choreography can do to change an experience on a large scale,\u201d Evans says. That experience was a pivotal lesson that contributes to what Evans is doing today.<\/p>\n In 2000, Evans also worked on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Continuing this path of networking and collaboration, he was offered additional opportunities to work on other major events that required expansive teams of choreographers.<\/p>\n After a return trip to New York City, Evans was ready to embark on another chapter. His final dance performance was with Fosse. Later, using his creative training and design instinct with a portfolio in hand, Evans applied for a design position with Deloitte in Lower Manhattan. Evans worked his way to Creative Director, which provided a robust experience in management, collaboration, and the many facets of being a designer.<\/p>\n To add to Evans\u2019 numerous Super Bowl experiences, he is working on the halftime show for 2016. It takes place Sunday, Feb. 7 with a matchup between the Carolina Panthers and the Denver Broncos. The Super Bowl halftime show is considered the most-watched musical event of the year\u2014it is estimated that there will be more than 118.5 million viewers of this worldwide broadcast from Levi\u2019s Stadium in San Francisco.<\/p>\n Today, Evans is pursuing his master\u2019s degree in Art + Design with a concentration in animation and new media. This is something that he says may be part of his \u201cbucket list\u201d\u2014but the idea has been germinating and developing for the past thirty years.<\/p>\n For his final project, Evans is utilizing his passion to visually tell stories \u2013 to choreograph \u2013 and to share an experience. \u201cMy final project is based on my experience from 9\/11. I\u2019m sharing this \u2013 I thought it was important to express this experience \u2013 in a visual and audio narrative. As a collective group of people, we each have a memory from 9\/11 and the experience. We can each immediately conjure up visual identities of this experience.\u201d If you think about all the amazing things Evans has participated in and the experiences that each has offered, you can understand the importance of this project.<\/p>\n 9\/11 occurred and changed everything. \u201cI left my job (at Deloitte) because of 9\/11. It was kind of a spiritual awakening \u2013 re-grasping \u2013 my life-lense changed. I dove into choreography. I did it because it was what I wanted to do \u2013 what my heart wanted. It was comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI want to do something for the people that survived and those that didn\u2019t and to share my experience. I believe people have a visual experience but it is always removed. Unless one was actually there, you only experienced it second hand \u2013 through the media. My goal is to create an immersive sound experience \u2013 or installation that is an autobiographical sound narrative that pulls from the collective imagery of that day.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis project is an inspirational abstraction of that experience (from 9\/11). Sound is an incredibly powerful device or modality to deliver emotion. I want to put you (the participant) inside a piece of my personal timeline from that day \u2013 from the morning\u00a0before the plane hit, until when the buildings fell. I just didn\u2019t want to do something that was already done and something that people have already seen.\u201d<\/p>\n Some of the compositional elements Evans will be using consists of raw files and footage from the event, but the narrative will be his personal experience told in his own words. As one can imagine, when you are exposed to such a tragic and unbelievable event, it is hard to comprehend. The mind has a way of absorbing or incorporating pieces and parts of the actual experience and leaving your memory with abstracts of the event. Evans speaks of moments of full clarity of what was occurring and then in instances of segmented or departmentalized happenings. \u201cIt was complete chaos, there was such loud noises \u2013 sirens \u2013 but I could hear paper falling,\u201d Evans says. He is still working on the details, complexity, and components of his final project.<\/p>\n Evans has been busy at the College of Design. He produced Justin LeBlanc\u2019s fashion short film \u201cJourney<\/a>\u201d that highlights the 15\/16 collection of LeBlanc\u2019s new line. For the 2015 Art 2 Wear (A2W) event, Evans developed the introductory film and interactive videos that set the tone for the rest of A2W.<\/p>\n Recently, Evans wrapped up work on the film \u201cBilly Lynn\u2019s Long Half-time Walk,\u201d based on the best-selling book of the same name. Evans also worked with award-winning film director Ang Lee on this project. Lee is considered one of today\u2019s greatest contemporary filmmakers and is attributed to \u201cSense and Sensibility\u201d (1995) and \u201cCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon\u201d (2000). He won the 2005 Best Director Academy Award for \u201cBrokeback Mountain\u201d (2005).<\/p>\n Evans is a big advocate for the Crohn\u2019s and Colitis Foundation of America\u2014a personal mission. He hopes to continue to make time to advocate for this organization and the people affected.<\/p>\n \u201cThe story here is that years of life experience prompt much of the work I am doing in the College of Design. I am approaching the opportunities within and outside the Art+Design program to collaborate, share, and learn as the start of a new chapter\u2014one that will lead me to new practice\u2014based research and creative relationships. Ultimately, the next new chapter will focus on a pedagogical career combined with continued creative exploration. I have much to share and learn!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false,"raw":"It isn\u2019t uncommon for someone to return to academia in pursuit of furthering his or her education following years of professional experience. Call it a chance to progress a career, the opportunity to explore a passion, or to return for a second career. Mark Evans could fit within all these categories and possibly a few more. He has years of experience and wisdom but is always seeking more.\n\nEvans originally hails from Chapel Hill and graduated from UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication. After graduating, he quickly headed to New York City where he landed a job with Good Morning America (GMA) and worked with Joel Siegel. Television offered a great career but the hours were long and the day started early. Evans enjoyed it \u2013 but did not love it. Mark Evans is always seeking out opportunities to learn and explore his passions. With years of professional experience behind him, he has returned to academia to pursue his Masters in Art+Design.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"source":"","ncst_custom_author":"","ncst_show_custom_author":false,"ncst_dynamicHeaderBlockName":"","ncst_dynamicHeaderData":"","ncst_content_audit_freq":"","ncst_content_audit_date":"","ncst_content_audit_display":false,"ncst_backToTopFlag":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9,16,15],"class_list":["post-21429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art-design","tag-art2wear","tag-graphic-design"],"displayCategory":null,"acf":{"ncst_posts_meta_modified_date":null},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design.ncsu.edu\/architecture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/a>Evans was part of the \u201cin-crowd\u201d at the time\u2014living an exciting life in NYC, meeting famous people, and participating in national musical theater tours. Along the way, he was introduced to choreography, which Evans refers as \u201canother visual language.\u201d \u201cChoreography is another form of story telling. They are all kinetic \u2013 dance and animation. It was interesting and I realized I could not dance forever so I started playing around with this idea.\u201d This idea of choreography opened the doors to many new opportunities and collaborative relationships for Evans.<\/p>\n<\/a>Evans later worked on the halftime show for the 2001 Super Bowl, which includes performances by Aerosmith, NSYNC, Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige, and Nelly. In 2002, he worked with U2, and in 2003 with Sting, No Doubt, and Shania Twain. For ten consecutive years, Evans was part of the team which helped produce the Super Bowl halftime show. He has also worked with Madonna, Katy Perry, Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Beyonc\u00e9, Bruno Mars, and more. His role varies based on the needs of each of these productions. However, the goal is to always deliver an experience that is visually interesting on a large scale. This type of production takes an army of coordination, choreography, manpower, rehearsals, and logistics. Evans has pleasant memories and take-away lessons from each of these events.<\/p>\n<\/a>\n\n\u201cMy first language is dance. I was trained in classical ballet. I discovered television was not my true calling and my goal was to perform.\u201d He continued to work at GMA during the day and would later audition for Broadway shows with aspirations of becoming a dancer. He landed numerous roles in iconic shows such as \u201cA Chorus Line,\u201d \u201cJoseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat\u201d with Donny Osmond, \u201cChicago the Musical,\u201d and \u201cVictor\/ Victoria.\u201d Evans was able to leave GMA and focus on dance.\n\nEvans is not the type of person who can sit still. His schedule of auditions, rehearsals, and performances was hectic, but Evans found time to work and dabble with graphic design software. \u201cI have always been fascinated with motion graphics. Saul Bass inspired me with his evolutionary crafting of title sequences of movies.\u201d Bass was a graphic designer and filmmaker who worked with some of Hollywood\u2019s greatest filmmakers including Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese. Evans was interested in design and graphics, which could deliver an experience \u2013 movement that told a story.\n\nHis passion and interest in design led him to Parsons School of Design where he studied color theory, motion graphics, and advertising. He explored foundational design process methodologies and various theoretical frameworks in graphic design\u2014and he continued to dance.\n<\/a>Evans was part of the \u201cin-crowd\u201d at the time\u2014living an exciting life in NYC, meeting famous people, and participating in national musical theater tours. Along the way, he was introduced to choreography, which Evans refers as \u201canother visual language.\u201d \u201cChoreography is another form of story telling. They are all kinetic \u2013 dance and animation. It was interesting and I realized I could not dance forever so I started playing around with this idea.\u201d This idea of choreography opened the doors to many new opportunities and collaborative relationships for Evans.\n\nAs Evans continued to dance in music videos, with entertainers such as Paula Abdul and Bell Biv DeVoe, he was also networking with key choreographers. Additionally, he was working with Martin Lawrence on \u201cBlack Knight.\u201d He was living in Los Angeles at the time \u2013 but not loving it.\n\nLater, more opportunities arrived and Evans found himself working alongside Kenny Ortega with the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Ortega is a film and television producer, director, and choreographer who has worked with Michael Jackson, Billy Squire, and Madonna. \u201cWorking on the Olympic project was the ignition of what choreography can do to change an experience on a large scale,\u201d Evans says. That experience was a pivotal lesson that contributes to what Evans is doing today.\n\nIn 2000, Evans also worked on the opening and closing ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Continuing this path of networking and collaboration, he was offered additional opportunities to work on other major events that required expansive teams of choreographers.\n\nAfter a return trip to New York City, Evans was ready to embark on another chapter. His final dance performance was with Fosse. Later, using his creative training and design instinct with a portfolio in hand, Evans applied for a design position with Deloitte in Lower Manhattan. Evans worked his way to Creative Director, which provided a robust experience in management, collaboration, and the many facets of being a designer.\n\n<\/a>Evans later worked on the halftime show for the 2001 Super Bowl, which includes performances by Aerosmith, NSYNC, Britney Spears, Mary J. Blige, and Nelly. In 2002, he worked with U2, and in 2003 with Sting, No Doubt, and Shania Twain. For ten consecutive years, Evans was part of the team which helped produce the Super Bowl halftime show. He has also worked with Madonna, Katy Perry, Janet Jackson, Justin Timberlake, Beyonc\u00e9, Bruno Mars, and more. His role varies based on the needs of each of these productions. However, the goal is to always deliver an experience that is visually interesting on a large scale. This type of production takes an army of coordination, choreography, manpower, rehearsals, and logistics. Evans has pleasant memories and take-away lessons from each of these events.\n\nTo add to Evans\u2019 numerous Super Bowl experiences, he is working on the halftime show for 2016. It takes place Sunday, Feb. 7 with a matchup between the Carolina Panthers and the Denver Broncos. The Super Bowl halftime show is considered the most-watched musical event of the year\u2014it is estimated that there will be more than 118.5 million viewers of this worldwide broadcast from Levi\u2019s Stadium in San Francisco.\n\nToday, Evans is pursuing his master\u2019s degree in Art + Design with a concentration in animation and new media. This is something that he says may be part of his \u201cbucket list\u201d\u2014but the idea has been germinating and developing for the past thirty years.\n\nFor his final project, Evans is utilizing his passion to visually tell stories \u2013 to choreograph \u2013 and to share an experience. \u201cMy final project is based on my experience from 9\/11. I\u2019m sharing this \u2013 I thought it was important to express this experience \u2013 in a visual and audio narrative. As a collective group of people, we each have a memory from 9\/11 and the experience. We can each immediately conjure up visual identities of this experience.\u201d If you think about all the amazing things Evans has participated in and the experiences that each has offered, you can understand the importance of this project.\n\n9\/11 occurred and changed everything. \u201cI left my job (at Deloitte) because of 9\/11. It was kind of a spiritual awakening \u2013 re-grasping \u2013 my life-lense changed. I dove into choreography. I did it because it was what I wanted to do \u2013 what my heart wanted. It was comfortable.\u201d\n\n\u201cI want to do something for the people that survived and those that didn\u2019t and to share my experience. I believe people have a visual experience but it is always removed. Unless one was actually there, you only experienced it second hand \u2013 through the media. My goal is to create an immersive sound experience \u2013 or installation that is an autobiographical sound narrative that pulls from the collective imagery of that day.\u201d\n\n\u201cThis project is an inspirational abstraction of that experience (from 9\/11). Sound is an incredibly powerful device or modality to deliver emotion. I want to put you (the participant) inside a piece of my personal timeline from that day \u2013 from the morning\u00a0before the plane hit, until when the buildings fell. I just didn\u2019t want to do something that was already done and something that people have already seen.\u201d\n\nSome of the compositional elements Evans will be using consists of raw files and footage from the event, but the narrative will be his personal experience told in his own words. As one can imagine, when you are exposed to such a tragic and unbelievable event, it is hard to comprehend. The mind has a way of absorbing or incorporating pieces and parts of the actual experience and leaving your memory with abstracts of the event. Evans speaks of moments of full clarity of what was occurring and then in instances of segmented or departmentalized happenings. \u201cIt was complete chaos, there was such loud noises \u2013 sirens \u2013 but I could hear paper falling,\u201d Evans says. He is still working on the details, complexity, and components of his final project.\n\nEvans has been busy at the College of Design. He produced Justin LeBlanc\u2019s fashion short film \u201cJourney<\/a>\u201d that highlights the 15\/16 collection of LeBlanc\u2019s new line. For the 2015 Art 2 Wear (A2W) event, Evans developed the introductory film and interactive videos that set the tone for the rest of A2W.\n\nRecently, Evans wrapped up work on the film \u201cBilly Lynn\u2019s Long Half-time Walk,\u201d based on the best-selling book of the same name. Evans also worked with award-winning film director Ang Lee on this project. Lee is considered one of today\u2019s greatest contemporary filmmakers and is attributed to \u201cSense and Sensibility\u201d (1995) and \u201cCrouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon\u201d (2000). He won the 2005 Best Director Academy Award for \u201cBrokeback Mountain\u201d (2005).\n\nEvans is a big advocate for the Crohn\u2019s and Colitis Foundation of America\u2014a personal mission. He hopes to continue to make time to advocate for this organization and the people affected.\n\n\u201cThe story here is that years of life experience prompt much of the work I am doing in the College of Design. I am approaching the opportunities within and outside the Art+Design program to collaborate, share, and learn as the start of a new chapter\u2014one that will lead me to new practice\u2014based research and creative relationships. Ultimately, the next new chapter will focus on a pedagogical career combined with continued creative exploration. I have much to share and learn!\u201d"},"excerpt":{"rendered":"